Shirley Curtiss

NATIONAL SERVICE FOR CITIZEN-ARTISTS. ArtistYear is dedicated to addressing inequities in Arts Education for K-12 students. To ensure that every low-income student in America has the opportunity to reap the social-emotional and academic benefits associated with creative learning, ArtistYear created a national service arts corps. We train and support AmeriCorps Resident Teaching Artists—gifted recent graduates across all artistic disciplines—and place them as full-time teaching artists at high-need schools. This innovative strategy significantly bolsters arts education for our most vulnerable youth, with all its attendant benefits, while improving student academic and social-emotional development, enhancing school climate and capacity, benefiting the larger community, and developing a new generation of artists and educators steeped in national service. ArtistYear is the nation's first AmeriCorps program focused on the arts.